


Overkill

by samwise



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mutual Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 06:04:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samwise/pseuds/samwise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony has skimmed all of the important SHIELD profiles, but he’d be lying if he said Clint Barton is anything but a name on a piece of paper to him.  That naturally changes when they're sent on a mission together, but not exactly in the way Tony expects it to.  It's a story in three parts, following two people who really just need to learn to talk about their feelings and have more sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Name

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Немного слишком](https://archiveofourown.org/works/919369) by [Luinil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luinil/pseuds/Luinil)



Tony has skimmed all of the important SHIELD profiles, of course, but he’d be lying if he said Clint Barton is anything but a name on a piece of paper to him.

It’s been a couple of weeks since Captain America was found in the back of Antarctica’s freezer like some kind of loose popsicle, and unsurprisingly Fury isn’t the only one stirred up by the discovery.  In fact, there are all kinds of people clamouring for possession of the poor guy, including a fairly aggressive and far-more-than-fairly right wing sect, who are apparently claiming some tenuous familial link and want him delivered to their place for a reunion, pronto.  It is this whack-job cult, inexplicably, that Fury has none-too-politely asked Tony to ‘watch’.

Pepper insists it’s a good idea for him to be out of the way and doing something, of course; plans for Stark Tower are well underway now, and Tony isn’t nearly as helpful or as knowledgeable about them as he pretends to be.  In fact, he’s been itching to be back in the old red and gold, even if only for a tiny thing.  As such, he agrees – tempting as it always is to refuse Nick Fury a favour.

And what does he get for his kindness?  He gets a sullen archer as a colleague, who has now suddenly become a body and an irritation instead of just a name.

“Clint Barton,” is the first thing he says.  For the longest time it’s also just about the last, as much as Tony tries encouraging conversation with him.  Usually it’s enough just to be his irritating self, but Barton has more patience than Pepper, and that is in equal parts fascinating and _really_ annoying.

“You know, there’s this thing,” Tony eventually says as they’re putting up the surveillance tent – a fucking _tent_ , because apparently Fury is secretly a boy-scout leader or enjoys torturing billionaires who are used to six levels of luxury.  “There’s this old wives’ tale, I guess you could call it, which says that if you don’t talk for a while – and I know it sounds crazy, but hey ho.  It says if you don’t talk for a long time, your lips will actually _seal together_.”

“No,” says Barton thinly, and Tony has to admit it’s quite an effective dismissal.  Slight overkill in response to a joke, maybe, but this guy has overkill written from his forehead to the tips of his leather-clad toes.  It’s particularly prominent in the sheath of arrows on his back.  Two hours ago Tony very nearly wondered aloud about who the hell uses a bow and arrow these days anyway, and didn’t medieval types deliberately invent the crossbow because it was just _better_?  Then he saw the guy take aim at a torn scrap of grey fabric hanging on a tree for fun.  From the same distance, Tony could barely see it.

He’s not going to make a joke about it now that he’s seen it in action.  No, sirree. He's stupid, but he's not _stupid_. There's a difference.

Their tent is stationed approximately five miles from the walled community they’re observing, which usefully enough is just visible across the plain.  Fury seems to think they’re packing more technology than they should, which is why they’ve spent all day damn walking here, and it’s what they’ll be watching for over the next few days.  Watching, of course, here means that they have a few simple handheld devices that Tony could assemble with his hands tied behind his back. Not that he’s thought about it, of course... only yes, of course has. What else is his ego for?  In any case, these will measure radar activity and the like.  Once they confirm that Fury is unnecessarily paranoid about a bunch of backwards wackos, then Tony can finally go home.

Of course, Tony is the first to be aware that appearances can be deceiving and that those that have heavy equipment often don’t look like it.  Even so, this is pushing it for him.  This is not war-torn Afghanistan.  This is Colorado, and it’s not like the people they’re watching are ever going to be taken seriously anyway.

Barton switches the basic detector on and Tony listens to it whizz into life as he checks over the light armour he brought with him.  There’s every chance he won’t need it unless there _is_ something in that community that the government doesn’t know about, but he intends to use it at some point anyway.  If Barton gets to play with his teach-yourself-Legolas kit then it’s only fair.

“Positive,” says Barton.  “It’s picking up a high amount.  Best guess is it’s being used as security.  They’re masking something.”

“Shit,” says Tony.  At least he’s got a valid reason to crack the suit out.

They can have a fire if they’re careful.  They wouldn’t be the first to come camping on the plains, after all - and while it isn’t Tony’s first, third or fiftieth choice of vacation spot, he still has to admit it’s kind of impressive to see the sun set on such a vast, empty landscape.  From the balconies he usually sees things like this from, he feels separate from the view.  At least from this level he’s almost involved; he can actually see the sunlight slowly fade away from him as the firelight takes over.

Fuck, but it’s cold.  Tony doesn’t last long outside before he shivers into the tent for the night, still irritated that he’s going to have to share with one of the least fun guys he has ever worked with.  It’s big enough, of course, and it’s not as though there’s going to be an uncomfortably small gap between them, but it still feels a little undignified as sleeping arrangements go.  They are, after all, grown men – not to mention Tony owns a Fortune 500 company.  Shouldn’t that stand for something?

He never hears Barton come into the tent, but neither does he remember watching the sun coming up or falling asleep, and one of those things has to have happened.  He looks over his shoulder once it’s already light, and it turns out Barton did come in sometime.  He’s already awake, though, and just pulling a shirt on over his head.

“Morning.  You sleep?”

“Hey, you spoke unprompted.  That’s what I call progress; keep at it, son.”  The look on Barton’s face says that this will be the last time it happens, so Tony grins and sits up, stretching his aching shoulders.  “I think I managed to get a few hours in, sure.  Whatever happened, it wasn’t restful.  How about you?”

“The meter readings are high enough to warrant investigation.  I suggest we forget about measuring over a few days and just scout it out now.”

“Wow, c’mon, Barton.  That’s enough.  I don’t need to hear every intricate detail.  You slept well. Great, that’s good.  Nice dreams.  Lots of bunny rabbits.  What about our _job_?”

“I slept,” he says, dry as the sun. Perhaps he can sense that Tony won’t stop until he gets an answer.  “Are you going to suit up or not?”

Barton is nobody’s boss, but Tony doesn’t need asking twice when it comes to the suit.  Besides, he’s always been a direct approach kind of guy.  Fury probably isn’t going to like this plan as it’s quickly formed and not even remotely subtle, but Tony struggles to care what Fury does and does not like, particularly when he’s not the one sleeping in the fucking tent.

Neither of them expects to see much of anything from above, but it’s a necessary part of the proceedings all the same.  Tony is carrying a standard camera, a thermal imaging device and a radiation recorder about his person, and it’s irritating. Usually everything he needs is built in, but this is only a light suit.  Who’d frequently need deeply technical sensors about their person, after all?  The extra weight is going to make it harder to manoeuvre in-flight, and if it was anybody else but Barton he’d probably bitch about that.

 

They get ready for take-off, leaving the tent where it is to walk ten miles out.  Their aim is to make it look as though Tony just happens to be flying over.  Chances are the cult members won’t buy it, but for a three hours’ walk it’s worth a shot.

“Go easy,” Barton tells him.

“I live by ‘go hard or go home’.”

“Sure,” says Barton, “but go easy.  You don’t need to fly loops.  You don’t need to double back.  It’s all going to work first time.  Just fly straight.”

“Like an arrow,” says Tony.  “If said arrow had a breeze behind it and turned when it felt like it…”

“Just fucking fly straight.”

Tony smirks, but when he looks up to enjoy the man’s irritated expression he’s just met with another smirk.  Okay, that wasn’t what he was expecting.

“See you later,” he says, and Barton has already set off again.  When Tony next sees him it’ll be back at the tent, and Barton will have spent six hours walking today.  It occurs to him that there wasn’t even a need for the guy to come along for take-off, but he kind of suspects that Barton’s along as a bodyguard rather than a colleague.  It isn’t that Tony can’t handle himself, of course.  It’s simply that Fury considers Tony too valuable an asset to risk with a solo effort, and really that’s not an offensive thing at all.  Besides, survival and strategy is Barton’s job.  Tony’s is to invent things and look handsome.

He’s damned good at it, too.

It doesn’t take him long to reach the community compound, and of course there is nothing visible from above.  He flies straight over as planned, safe in the knowledge that doubling back wouldn’t give him anything more anyway.  That being said, if they were paying attention then they’ll already know he was looking.  After all, they’ve already proven they’re not as stupid as Tony thought, and he was clearly flying way slower than he usually does. He still is, in fact, as it’d be even less subtle to speed up now that he’s clear of them.  He doesn’t like it, but it was necessary for him to be able to get a look at their compound.

His return route is long and convoluted to avoid having to fly directly in their view.  He speeds up as soon as it’s reasonable to and enjoys it, twisting and rolling over the vast plain.  He prefers this to flying in the city.  Pepper always says he loves an audience, and it’s true.  He does - but he also likes to be alone sometimes.  Of course, the point of having a private side is to keep it private, so she wouldn’t know about that.

He does loves a secret, though.  They’re a rare commodity for a public figure.

 

As planned, he lands a couple of miles away from camp and walks back.  This walk lasts as long as the entire flight, and the afternoon is already starting to bow out to evening when he finally approaches their site.  Despite being pretty good at what he does, though, Tony isn’t Barton, and it takes him a long time to realise that something isn’t quite right here.

“Barton?” he calls as he approaches the tent.  Maybe it’s simply that he’d been expecting to see the guy perched outside waiting for him; maybe it’s the lack of a fire.  Wouldn’t Barton have started building it by now?  Whichever reason it is, he’s cautious as he steps through the mouth of the tent – and with good reason, it would seem, as he catches sight of the people inside.

He takes a deep breath.  Beyond that, there isn’t a single crack or tell on his face.

“Gentlemen,” he says reasonably, and folds up his sleeves.  He doesn’t let go of the suit, of course, which he’s been carrying in its case for the past few hours.  Hell if he’ll ever let go of the suit.  There are five of them in here – five and Barton, and now that he thinks of it he can’t help but wonder how in the world they managed to pull that one off.  Even back when Barton was just a name on a page, he was one _hell_ of a name.

They look at each other.  For once, Tony prefers Barton’s silence.

“You’re going to come with us, Mr. Stark.”

“Damn,” he says.  “Can’t go anywhere without being recognised these days.  I mean, no offence, gents, but can’t a guy take a vacation without being pestered for pictures, phone calls, autographs…?”

“In this case you might want to just shut up and do as you’re told,” says Barton.  Tony isn’t sure he’s ever heard a sentence that long from the guy before, but that aside it’s still completely out of character.  Surely he’s been caught before. Surely he doesn’t just go to pieces when faced with this kind of situation?

“Huh,” says Tony.

“Talking out of your ass doesn’t suit you,” Barton adds.

Something in Tony clicks.  He kneels down slowly and puts the case on the floor, unlocking the hatches.  He’s still wearing the light armour panels under his clothes, and the boots are just _boots_ – in the case there’s just the headpiece, the thrust system and, crucially, the repulsor gauntlets.

 _In this case_ , he’d said.  _Doesn’t suit you_.  And if Tony didn’t know better he’d think he just saw Barton give the slightest nod.

“You don’t need to pack anything, Mr. Stark,” the largest one says.  They don’t look like thugs, and it’s quite offensive to Tony’s action-movie lifestyle.  At least they’re just as stupid, if not more so.  He’s going to have to dispatch them regardless, and it’ll be a shame to mess up their hair.  That’s why skinheads shave it all off, right?  “You don’t need a damn thing where you’re going.”

“It’s real good of you to provide for me and all,” he says, lifting the lid a little to look inside the case and pretending to rustle through.  Of course, what he actually does is start to put one of the gauntlets on.  “But a guy’s got to have his luxuries.”

They catch on now, even if it’s a little late.  That’s to their credit, at least.  “What’s in the case?”

“Three things,” Barton supplies.  This guy really needs to learn how to use his words better - but a second later Tony realises that actually, no.  He doesn’t.  He’s good.

“More like two things, really.”

“One.”

It really shouldn’t be that easy to actually count down in front of people who are trying to take you captive.  It makes Tony feel a little guilty about bringing them all to the ground. Well... No.  Actually, he doesn’t feel guilty at all.  He lifts his hand from the case, cool and composed, and sends a repulsor blast at the leader.  It’s enough to send the others reeling for a few moments, and that’s all Barton needs.  Clearly very highly trained in close combat, he evades the vague grabbing motions of one of the remaining four by smashing his head into the only hard surface around – another thug’s face.  Tony hits the last one standing with another repulsor blast now that it’s recharged, and Barton kneels down to finish the job; the guy whose face he hit is still conscious for a few more seconds before Barton gets his hands on the pressure point at his neck.

“So, how’ve you been?” Tony asks nonchalantly, slipping the gauntlet back into the case.  Barton throws him a look, and for a brief moment Tony thinks they’re going back to silence again.  Then he hears the guy speak.

“Too much company for my liking,” he says.  Tony thinks it’s meant to be a joke, or at least hopes it is as he snickers at it.  Apparently he’s pinned it right. Barton smirks down at the equipment as he kneels to lift it onto his shoulder.  “Better leave this all here and split.”

“You’re not seriously suggesting we head back to Fury.”

“I’m suggesting we go find new cover so it’s not dark when we get there - get a fire going before our balls freeze off.”

Handing the baton to Fury would be too much like giving up for Clint, apparently. Maybe they do have something in common after all.  They head off in the direction of the mountain, hoping to find some give in the rock-face that they can shelter in.  Sure enough, there’s a cave, and it’s even facing away from the walled community.  This means they can’t keep an eye on it, but it also means the community can’t spot the fire, which they light as soon as they’re settled.  The fire aside, the world is dark out here, and when Tony looks out of the mouth of the cave all he can see is stars.  It reminds him of Afghanistan somewhat, only here he feels safer.  Here he has the upper hand, in part because he also has Barton.

And Barton, thankfully, is warming a little.  He even tells Tony to ‘fuck off’ as Tony presses him about the nature of his relationship with Ms. Romanov - seems amused when Tony answers his own retaliatory question about Pepper Potts with frank, fearless details.  They’ve been talking for a while when Tony finally remembers they haven’t discussed the mission yet.

“You know, there was nothing to see,” he says.  “We were right.”  Maybe that’s why neither of them has brought it up yet; it’s barely worth the confirmation.  “Just houses.  Nothing big enough to conceal the kind of stuff they’re packing, at least not above ground.”

“They’re not that stupid.”

“Nah,” Tony agrees.  “Smart enough to find our little scout camp, at least.”

“Guess so.”

About that.  Tony’s head has been returning to the same question all day, about how the hell they managed to pull one over on _Clint fucking Barton_.  Maybe he’ll just get another ‘fuck off’ for asking something like this, but he has to know.  “How’d they do it, anyway?”

“Find it?”

“No - you.  How’d they get you?”  He prods the fire with a stick, feeling it might offset the way he’s maybe prodding at Barton’s masculinity.  “Not like you to get overpowered so easy.  Not even when there’s five of ‘em.”

“I was waiting.”

“For me?”

“Easier to wait than to try finding you in the woods,” he points out.  “Could have climbed one of the trees and waited up there; stopped you as you passed, if you came that way.  But why bother?”

“You don’t think it’s an insult to your ego for them to think they got you without even having to try?”

“I’m not you,” Barton reminds him.  There’s something in his smirk that’s challenging and not entirely in a friendly way. Tony kind of likes it.  “Just chose the option with the least risk and effort.”

“Lazy, huh?”  Barton’s silent again, and maybe Tony’s expecting too much if he thinks he can string a full conversation out of a man that doesn’t like to talk.  “That’s alright.  I’m feeling kind of lazy myself.  In fact, I think it’s time I gave into that laziness and settled down for the night.”

“You ever stop talking?”

“You can let me know in the morning.  I’m going to sleep.”

Barton doesn’t say anything, but he starts moving to set his sleeping bag up too, so Tony guesses he must be following suit.  They climb in and lie down without saying anything, facing out towards the plains and the stars.  Only the fire stands between them and the world outside, and for a while that’s interesting to ponder.  Finally, however, Tony can’t help but break the silence one more time.

“Is this fire even on?  Because I’m still freezing my ass off.”

“Don’t know what you want me to do about that, ‘sides get in there and warm it up for you.”

“Better that than the fucking cold.”

Tony’s grinning until he hears Barton shuffle in the fabric.  Exactly when did this conversation get serious?  He’s about to ask when he sees Barton sit up on his elbow, glancing across in the dark.  He can only see half the guy’s face in the firelight, but it’s enough to watch his lips move as he speaks.

“You got Pepper Potts to do that for you.”

 “Pepper Potts,” Tony points out, not without a trace of guilt, “is not here.”

“Shame for you,” says Barton, settling back down into the sleeping bag, and suddenly it’s not so much a conversation as an opportunity.  The world outside is dead; no cameras, lights or witnesses to track his every move, and in here Barton is alive, warm and apparently more willing to share that warmth than he’s currently pretending.

Tony does love a secret.

“Barton,” he says again; watches his slumped form turn towards the cave wall.  “Barton, I’m _cold_ -”

“You are so fucking annoying.”

He climbs out of his sleeping bag so roughly it’s like it’s done him wrong, abandoning the fabric for just a few paces while he moves over to Tony’s side.  Tony smirks, triumphant and willing to risk showing it because hell, his arrogance apparently hasn’t put Barton off yet.  The gamble pays off; Barton grunts in irritation and crushes his lips against Tony’s.

“Shut _up_ ,” he warns, speaking against his lips and returning to kiss them hard as Tony only snickers in response.  He’s fast, hands shifting to grind over Tony’s crotch through his jeans, and totally merciless in his occupation of Tony’s lips.  It’s clear, as far as Tony’s concerned, that this is no gentle-flower romantic contact.  This is going to be a fuck, not an act of love, and it’s been far too long since Tony did anything but _make love_ that it’s already warming him up; already he’s good and ready under talented hands that could break him just as easily as they’re fixing him.

It occurs to Tony that he ought to reciprocate, but Barton is already too far ahead and he decides just to let it happen and return the favour afterwards.  All the better to enjoy what he is about to receive – and may the Lord make him truly thankful.  He rocks eagerly into Barton’s hand, moaning quietly as Barton bites his lip, perhaps in punishment.  He’ll get more when he’s allowed it, so he stops and lies still.  At least it saves them getting twisted in the fabric.  Maybe that’s what Barton’s trying to stop as he climbs over Tony, propping himself up there on one of those strong, archer’s arms, and slides his hand inside jeans Tony wasn’t aware he’d even unzipped.

Boxers are, he suddenly decides, the most infuriating item of clothing ever to have been invented, but he’s reprimanded again with another bite as he tries to tug them down.  Barton’s hand-job, Barton’s rules – and he doesn’t even mind that, he supposes, though the bites feel good enough that he’s already contemplating breaking those rules again until _hell,_ Barton’s hand is back palming over the front of his groin and he’s not even capable of thinking anymore.

“Quiet,” Barton demands, and it’s only when he hears it that Tony realises he’s leaned back and relinquished control of his lips.  The guy doesn’t seem the kissing sort, so Tony guesses maybe it was just to keep him quiet in the first place.  He grins now that he can, daring to wear a defiant look even if he knows it might encourage Barton to stall more.  He can feel his lips are flushed and red where they’ve been bitten.  He hopes it’ll leave a bruise, even if he knows it won’t.

Fuck, but he’s missed sex like this – sex with strangers; sex with people who can barely seem to stand him but want him anyway; sex with people who pretend to like him because of all that _money_ and even a few people who somehow actually _do_ like him.  It’s not that Pepper isn’t brilliant, then, but simply that she’s brilliantly _safe_.

“Can’t stay quiet if you don’t hurry up,” he manages, watching Barton’s hand instead of his face now.  It’s a good, attractive face, but it’s the hand he cares about.  It’s the hand he wants.

After all, he does love Pepper.  He’s not attracted to her anymore, but he does love her.

It feels like it’s been hours since Barton first touched him, but finally he stops teasing and dips his hand under the waistline of Tony’s boxers.  He wastes no time; just takes him in his hand and wanks him off _hard_ , as though he actually _means_ for it to hurt.  Maybe he does.  Tony barely cares anymore, because it already feels like release, and when he actually does come it’s only marginally better than the build-up itself – no, who is he kidding?  He cries out like a wild animal because he feels like one, desperate and sated and caged all at once, and arches, aching, into Barton’s firm and slowing hand.

“Well, fuck,” he says, coming down off the high. What exactly do you do when your only set of clothes are probably covered in jizz anyway?

“You’re welcome,” says Barton.  Tony spots a smirk on his lips before he wipes his hand – on Tony’s sheet, the bastard – and heads back off to his own bed, leaving Tony to look up at the roof of the cave without a warm body bent over him anymore.

It might be half an hour later when he wakes up from his half-nap, half-daze and finally remembers that actually, he meant to jerk Barton off, too.

“You want me to do you?” he says over in Barton’s direction, but it seems like Barton is already asleep.

 

He has no idea what time it is when he wakes up, but at least he’s managed to get some sleep.  He suspects it’s an earlier hour than he’d like judging by the colour of the sky, but Barton is awake and it seems like he has been for a while, so he doesn’t complain.  A big contributor towards this lack of complaining is the reason he knows Barton has been awake for a while. There’s food cooked and ready.

“Cottontail rabbit,” says Barton, catching him looking at it.

“Smells good.” This is almost true. It doesn’t smell particularly good at all, but he’s hungry enough that he’d eat Barton’s hand if it wasn’t so damned talented.  “Some for me?”

Barton throws him a look; apparently this is a stupid thing to ask.  It’s so identical to the way he acted yesterday that Tony almost questions whether last night had actually happened, but there’s no mistaking the stains on his sleeping bag; thankfully, his clothes weren’t hit like he thought they were.  He guesses Barton’s just odd.

He stretches and sits down, running a hand through his hair to try and get it to settle.  It doesn’t, or won’t.  “Thanks,” he says, accepting the meat he’s handed.  He isn’t sure which part of the rabbit it is, and he doesn’t much care as he bites into it.  “Guess we’re lucky you’ve got such good aim with that thing.”

“No luck about it,” Barton says, and Tony supposes that’s fair enough.  “What’s the plan now?”

They’re here to scout out the community, after all.  If they don’t manage to do that, then the entire thing will have been a waste of time and effort, and clearly neither of them is the type to enjoy wasting their time.  They give themselves an hour or so to hash out a decent plan in the hopes that after that, they’ll be ready to make their move.  Neither of them is keen on spending another night out here.  Whether that has anything to do with last night or whether Barton’s just missing his soft bed as much as Tony misses being berated by Pepper, he doesn’t know.  It’s not worth thinking about, in any case.  He certainly doesn’t intend to ask.

Given that it’s clear there must be something off-colour inside there, they decide on a quick offensive to at least identify it and hopefully neutralise it, at least until Fury can dedicate resources to taking it out properly.  It has to be a fairly clean thing, too – an in and out job, with no chance of capture.  Things might get ugly if they get stuck on the cult’s turf.

For once, Tony is content to leave the hard part to somebody else.  Barton is more than capable, and would make a far less effective distraction if their roles were reversed.

 

They wait until the sun has almost set.  Even this less powerful version of the suit gives off a good amount of light to draw them in, and Barton is as good with shadows as he is with his hands.  It’s a very simply operation, really.  Tony comes in to land smack in the middle of the main courtyard, and knows – even if he can’t see him, and sure as hell isn’t looking – that Barton is coming in through the briefly unwatched gates.  He shoots a few repulsor blasts, deliberately missing his ‘targets’ by a fraction, and makes one hell of a fuss by demanding to be given his colleague back.  He’s just in the middle of arguing with the head of security that they _do_ in fact have his friend held unlawfully when he hears a satisfyingly loud hiss from the biggest building in the area, maybe fifty metres from them, followed by a warning alarm.

“Oh, wait. Sorry,” he says, flying over their boundary wall.  “I think I meant he’s got _you_.”

They head straight for that building, of course, but if everything has gone to plan then Barton will already be long gone.  He spots an arrow buried into the top of a tree and tugs it out as he passes.  This is their agreed signal.  Barton is out.  By the looks of it, so is the machine.  There’s certainly chaos going on down there now.  Maybe they think it’s going to blow.  Tony doesn’t.  He knows Barton is cleverer than that; cleverer than you’d have to be to want to cause a mess.

He grins beneath the mask.  He knows Fury won’t approve of their actions, even if the result is beneficial, and he kind of likes that.  It makes it feel more like a boys’ club than a mission, and an hour later when he steps into the clearing and spots the shit-eating grin on Clint Barton’s face, he guesses his colleague feels the same.

“Looks on their faces when the noise started-”

“You were giving ‘em so much fucking backchat I’m surprised they even _heard_ , Stark.”

“Fury’s gonna-”

“Gonna have to get you one hell of an alibi.”

Tony snorts, lifting the mask on the suit to throw him a look.  “I’ll say.”

“You know he’s gonna make it fucking… cross-stich club to get back at you for this shit.”

“I’m taking the rap, huh?  I guess that means you owe me.”

Barton smirks, crossing strong arms over his chest.  “Guess that means you’ve forgotten you still owe _me_.”

Tony had been so convinced that they were never going to speak of their ten-minute tryst again that it takes him a moment to work out what Barton is trying to say.  When he gets it, his grin is so wide it almost splits his pretty thin lips.  “You’re a-”

“Hold up,” says Barton, looking over Tony’s shoulder.

Tony turns, curious enough that he’s not yet irritated about this discussion being cut off.  He doesn’t see anything at first – then he catches sight of it way off in the dark.  It’s a jet of some kind. A SHIELD jet, if his eyes don’t fail him.

“Fury,” Barton confirms.

Well, there’s that conversation shot in the neck.  They don’t wait for very long before it lands, eerily quiet for a jet of its speed, and Director Fury walks out.

“Gentlemen,” he says, “I do not know what your definition of observation is, but for the sake of the American education system I can only hope it does not include what you did today.”

“There was a problem and we solved it,” Tony says in his favourite ‘reasonable but irritating’ tone of voice.  “So it didn’t fit the original brief.  The original brief didn’t fit reality.  Adapt to survive – or adapt to subdue a crazy cult, I guess.”

“Are you aware of the work covering this up will involve?”

“No more work than it’ll involve to wipe out the threat altogether, I’d say.”

 “I should not have to provide you with a goddamn alibi for a background observation task.  You were asked to be subtle, Stark.”

“Then next time, don’t ask.” Tony pushes his mask down, suddenly disenchanted with the idea of spending any length of time cooped up inside a jet with Nick Fury.  “Happy flying, Barton.”  And with that short exchange, it’s suddenly over – the mission, the argument and that much more interesting conversation with Barton.  It occurs to him later that he should really call up and arrange for them to go out for some beers, but then Pepper comes home from a work weekend, and that makes it all too easy to forget.

 

 _Clint Barton_ , he reads on the debriefing sheet, and it’s just a name after all.


	2. An Arrangement

It’s several months before Tony even hears Barton’s name again, and when he does it’s not in pleasant circumstances.  After all, you don’t have to be best friends with a guy, or even have returned his hand job, to feel bad that he’s being mind-controlled.  Chances are, Tony thinks, that Barton will be killed.  The guy is deadly, and Fury might not want to risk him being on the other side for too long.  Besides, who knows whether this thing is reversible?

“Sorry, man,” says Tony quietly, still browsing through the notes.  “We should have gone for drinks.”

He’s sad about it. Really, he is. No-one likes to see a good man go down – but he’s busy, and there’s nothing he or anyone can do for Barton right now anyway, so he forgets about it and moves on through the files.

By the time Barton is brought back over again, there’s no time for a reunion.  There’s no time to even think about it, because there’s an impending war coming and both Tony and Barton are busy not-dying.  As far as Tony’s concerned, this is a pretty good reason.  Besides, he’s somewhat preoccupied with wondering whether or not he’s ever going to see Pep again, and whether she’ll agree to spending an entire day in bed with him to celebrate if he does.

The only real contact he has with Barton is to give him a quick lift and swap tactics during the fight.  Both times it’s a fairly cut-and-dry exchange; Barton speaks very plainly, and there’s no familiarity in calling him ‘Legolas’ in response.  After all, Tony nicknames almost everyone.  There’s shawarma with everyone after the battle, too, but that’s no time for a personal conversation – not that it’d be anything private, of course.  In fact, they don’t even look at each other.  It just isn’t the right venue for it.

 

That right venue turns out to be Stark Tower a few weeks later.  It’s not fully fixed yet, but it’s functional, and Tony can live in it again. That’s the reason for the party, anyway.  Naturally, it’s a fairly big deal.  He and Pepper invite everyone.  Thor and Banner sadly don’t turn up, but Tony can understand why on both counts.  Besides, he has more than enough guests to play with, and Barton stands among them.

Tony greets him with the usual broad grin, spreading his hands.  “Barton.  You look so different out of cave lighting.”

“Still haven’t shut up, have you?”

He’s grinning, so Tony doesn’t mind taking the joke.  He grins back, slapping the guy on the shoulder.  “Good to see you, buddy.  You got yourself a drink?”

“Thanks.  Not tonight.”

“Brave.  Who’re you here with?”

“Natasha,” he says, glancing around to see if he can spot her.  “Not like that, though.”

“No?”

“Nah,” he says.  “I got a debt to call on.”

“You still remember that, huh?” He takes a look over to the main crowd of people.  Pepper isn’t looking back, but she doesn’t need to.  He sees her.  “We might have to take a rain-check on that one.”

Barton follows his look, then scoffs and returns his eyes to Tony’s.  “Seriously?”

“My hands are tied.”

“Real funny how it’s only a problem now it’s my turn.”

He folds his arms, watching Barton with eyes he knows are far too prone to roving.  He knows it, yes, but it doesn’t stop him from sighing and relenting.  Fine.  Fine.  One more indiscretion, and then he’s done.

“Let me show you the lab,” he says.

“Sure.”

They set off, Tony’s hands in his pockets and his head in a pretty guilty place.  All the same, he can’t shake the knowledge that this has been a long time coming.  For a few weeks now he’s been getting off to the fantasy of Clint Barton’s dick in his mouth, and Clint Barton’s hand in his hair.  It’s about as far from Pepper Potts as you can get – all rough and dirty and raw.  She is the antithesis of that, and unfortunately it means she’s also the antithesis of everything Tony wants right now, and everything he has wanted since their mission.  He’s gone from craving secrets to a full-scale life change.

She doesn’t know, of course.  How do you tell somebody you love anything like that?

“I guess I never got the chance to congratulate you, by the way.” Barton gives him a querying look, so he presses on. “You know.  Snapping out of that little Jedi mind trick master-slave setup you had going on.  Did I mention your eyes looked lovely in baby blue?”

“You’re not funny, Stark.”

Maybe if they were closer, they’d talk about this - talk about why it’s not funny, and how it felt to be Loki’s puppet.  As it is, Tony’s just a guy Barton’s going to screw, and he knows that, so he doesn’t ask.

“How’d you do it, anyway?”

“Natasha hit my head.  Hard.”

“And you’re sure you’re not actually dating her.”

“I know if I was I wouldn’t be heading to see your lab,” he says.  His tone is as even as ever, but it’d take a man a lot stupider than Tony Stark to miss that barb.

“Okay.  Half a minute ago I got frowny-face because I said I had a girlfriend, and now I’m about to get it again for caving in?”

“I’m not interested in criticising you,” Barton says.  To his credit, it’s clearly true. The man doesn’t beat about the bush.  “Just wondered what the deal is there.  You like her?”

“Oh, I love her.”

“Then why’d you do it in the first place?”

Tony pushes open the door of the lab and switches the lights on.  He keeps a tidy workspace, so as usual there are plenty of free surfaces to work with.  Maybe tonight’s work is a little different, but it’s helpful all the same.  He shuts the door behind Barton and leans against one of the benches, still stalling before giving his answer.  Annoyingly, Barton is waiting very patiently to hear it.

He spreads his hands. “You were there.  You were hot.  I was cold.”  Even with Tony’s charisma to carry off the lie, these don’t add up to a decent reason to cheat on a woman you’re in love with.  He knows it, and Barton knows it, so he carries on to the truth of the matter.  “I like bodies; I like sex.  Pep is great, and I’ll probably end up putting a ring on it anyway, but she’s…” He pauses, wondering if he’s really happy to say this to a near-stranger.  It takes him all of two seconds to decide.  “It’s all pretty vanilla, is what I’m trying to say.  And that’s not… my area of interest.”

“And apparently I radiate iniquity.”

“What can I say?  When we met you were in top-to-toe leather.”  Barton grins though it’s clear he’s trying not to.  Tony counts this as a victory.  “Look.  I’m just tired of playing nice and soft, and clearly that’s not you.”

“Then it’s just for sex.”

“Sure.”

Barton looks around the lab for a moment.  It occurs to Tony that he’s never been here before. He’ll have been in labs, he’s sure, but not a _Stark Industries_ lab, and that’s a pretty great experience whatever kind of conversation you’re having.  Part of him suspects that this is just payback for his pause before, though, so he cuts in.

“I guess we don’t even really need to talk about this.  I owe you back anyway. That’s what you’re here for.”

“Just working out if you’re after a round two.”

This has never been Tony’s intention, but almost his entire person aches for it as soon as it’s on the table.  Suddenly this is a full-blown affair instead of just a hand-job out in the middle of nowhere, and it’s too late to back out.  He doesn’t even want to.

“I’m after a round two.”

“Round three, round four…?”

“The works.”

“And we’ll kiss,” Barton says.  It sounds like a rule.

“Why wouldn’t we?”

He folds his arms and takes another glance across the room.  “Sometimes people get ideas.  Like they think it’s less of a cheat if it’s literally just sex.”

A thought strikes Tony fast and hard, though he’s not sure why it surprises him.  All he knows is that it _does_ surprise him - very much so.  “You’ve done this before.”

“Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” says Barton.  It’s delivered with a sly grin, but Tony doesn’t believe that grin for a second, and that surprises him too.  He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Barton give a shit before.  He certainly hasn’t seen Barton _pretending_ that he doesn’t give a shit.  Better to forget it, though.  It’s cleaner that way.  “Or so they say.”

“So… what, you just never have your own relationship?  Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s usually how it works out.”

“It’s easier?”

“Just happens that way.”

For some reason this is comforting, as though he’s not the worst person in the universe for considering this.  There are others in the same circle of hell after all. At least, there would be if Tony believed in hell.  Besides, it means Barton’s good at this, and somebody good at fucking without feeling is exactly what Tony wants.  “Huh.”

“Now that we’ve discussed the contract,” Barton says, not without a trace of sarcasm, “I guess I can remind you for the third time that it’s my turn.”

“Ah, you got me,” Tony says, though he isn’t really putting it off, and steps over to where Barton is standing.  “Why don’t you… go and sit on that stool at the back so we’re actually not in full view of the door, and I’ll just-”

Barton kisses him, and Tony can’t help but wonder who in the world he once fucked that refused to kiss him.  Whoever it was, they missed out.  He kisses like he’s fighting you, all forceful and fierce, and if Tony didn’t have an ego the size of Manhattan – or at least the pretty big tower he’s added to its skyline – then he’d give up right now and hand Barton full control.  Instead he struggles back, demanding as much as he’s giving, and very quickly he feels Barton hard against him.

“Gonna one-up you, though,” Tony murmurs against his lips, and maybe Barton senses he’s still talking because he moves his heavy kisses to Tony’s neck instead.  He tips his head back, happy to make room for him there.  Better not leave a bite-mark, though.  “We’ll call it interest.”

“You really don’t shut up, do you?”

Tony snickers, reaching down to get a light grip on Barton through his trousers.  He feels big, which excites him.  Not that he’d ever talk about it, but Tony’s always felt that size does, in fact, matter.  It’s been a long time since he’s had a man at all, never mind a _really_ well-endowed one, so he feels treated already, and they haven’t even started.  Judging by the quiet growl he’s just heard from Barton, that start ought to come soon.

“Come away from the door,” Tony insists again, moving his hand from his cock to grip around his wrist and lead him away.

Barton doesn’t resist.  In fact, he follows until it’s more like he’s leading from behind, pushing Tony up against the back wall for another hard, rough kiss.  It occurs to Tony that this is just drawing out the time before he finally gets his payback, but maybe Barton’s in no rush.  After all, it’s a whole different ballgame now that this is a proper _thing_.

Even so, Tony’s got needs too, and he doesn’t think it’s too selfish to be this desperate to give somebody head.  He breaks the kiss and turns them so it’s Barton’s back against the wall now.  There’s the look of the devil in Barton’s half-smirk, and Tony can’t wait to force it out of place.  He wonders how good the guy will look when he’s grunting Tony’s name like it’s something profane.  Time to find out.

Tony kneels in front of him, taking his time as he undoes Barton’s pants and reaches inside.  Barton groans even at just this first stage of release.  He shoots a smirk up at him.  “Sensitive, huh?  You’d think a guy like you would be used to resisting physical torture, at least enough so that you could stay _silent_ while it’s happening to-”

“Stop _talking,_ ” says Barton.  It’s not malicious, but it’s still funny.  Tony grins but does as he’s told at least for now, tugging his boxers down a little to lift him out.  No pussyfooting around here. This is long overdue, and Tony has no intention of leaving the debt unpaid any longer.  He leans forward to wrap his lips straight around the head of Barton’s cock, teasing the head a little with his tongue for a quick taste before he takes the whole thing into his mouth and starts moving – fast.

“Fuck.”

Tony hums around his cock, about to pull back to make some smart-ass comment when Barton’s hand finds the back of his head, keeping him down.  _No_.  He can hear it loud and clear, and he doesn’t mind in the least.  He gets a kick out of knowing that Barton is controlling him only because he has allowed Barton that privilege.

He also likes that Barton could floor him in a second, but doesn’t.

He pulls back after a few moments to draw his tongue over the full, aching length of Barton’s cock.  He _is_ big like Tony thought – not outlandishly so in the way that it’d be hard to take him, but a good size, and Tony approves of that.  He wants it inside him now, in fact, but he’s only been giving Barton head for a few minutes and after the accusations he had earlier, he’s determined to prove he’s capable of letting someone else come without getting any attention himself.  Only a few moments later Barton says “Touch yourself,” and there goes that thought process.

He breaks contact with Barton’s dick for a few moments to undo his own dress pants and take himself firmly in hand.  It strikes him suddenly that he has to jerk off like Barton did it; he has to emulate that as closely as he can if he wants to enjoy it.  It’s a strange thought, so he leans forward to take Barton back into his mouth.  Better than moaning aloud, after all.

“Fuck.  Yeah, like that.”

Barton’s hand tightens in his hair and Tony groans around him, tilting his head so he can take him in a little further.  He can feel himself getting close already, so he slows the hand jacking himself off a little and speeds up the pace with his mouth, trailing his tongue over the tip every time as he pulls his head back.  He considers it a personal challenge to make Barton come first.

It only takes a short while for Barton to grunt his warning.  “Close.”

Tony hums his acknowledgement, finding himself more desperate for it than he’d like to admit.  Maybe he’s sordid, or maybe he’s sex-starved.  Whatever it is, he groans quietly as Barton finally comes and swallows without even thinking about it - without even considering any other option.  Finished, done, clean.

Barton swears, leaning against the wall and doing his pants back up already as he catches his breath.  A few moments later, he’s almost entirely composed again.  Witchcraft.  “You done?”

“Almost,” Tony says.  He’s about to take himself back in hand when Barton crouches down to do it for him, and it’s just as good as before.  It only takes a few moments for him to finish hard and heavy into Barton’s hand. It’d have hit his shirt, only the guy had the forethought to roll his sleeve up first. Fucking professional.

“That’s very polite of you,” Tony manages after a few moments.  “You know. Thinking of others in that most tender of moments.  Managing to get your clothes out of the way, too; that’s quite-”

He’s silenced with a kiss, and Barton’s clean hand is strong but gentle as he cups Tony’s face.  It only lasts a few moments before Barton pulls away, heading for the sink on the far wall.  How he knows it’s there is beyond Tony.  Maybe agents like Barton never really switch off, even to the point of scoping out their friends’ rooms.

“Better head back up before she comes looking.”

“Sure.  We’ll get you some hors d'oeuvres - a nice post-coital glass of champagne…”

Barton smirks, following him out.  “You know what we just did doesn’t count as coitus, right?”

“Damn, you’re good,” says Tony as he leads him back into the party room, as smooth and composed as he was when he left it.  “So that’s what they teach at S.H.I.E.L.D. school.”

“Oh, there he is,” he hears Pepper say.  “Come and say hi; he’s probably been off playing with his toys.”

“I’ll say,” Barton murmurs as he heads off.  It’s a cruel joke, really, but it wouldn’t be the first time Tony has enjoyed Barton’s mildly malicious humour, and he has a fight on his hands to keep the smirk off his face.

The party is as long as they usually are, and Tony manages to pack in as many amusing not-quite-faux-pas as he usually does, but the evening feels wasted.  He doesn’t see Barton again all night, and it doesn’t feel right to ask Pep outright if he’s left.

If she ever finds out, after all, she’ll remember every time Tony spoke his name to her, and it’ll hurt.  Tony knows this because he’s done it before – not to her, but to someone else.  He intends on never letting it happen to her.  Somehow that makes actually doing this feel a little better, because at least it won’t hurt her.  At least it means he loves her.

 

It’s only three days later when Barton calls.  Tony is glad about that. He promised himself he’d only let it get to four days before he made the move himself, and it got way too close for his ego’s liking.

“I’ll be in Manhattan later today, maybe two o’ clock,” he says. “You want me to come over?”

“Come and come over,” Tony suggests, and grins.  He can practically hear Barton smirking too, even if it’s a stupid joke.  “Two is fine.  Half two is better.”

“Sure.  Is she home?”

“Until around then, yeah,” he says vaguely, suddenly panicking on the off-chance she’s in the lab behind him.  He turns, and of course she isn’t.  “We can wait if we need to.  Bring pizza; I’ve got beer.”

“What are you, fifteen years old?”

“I resent the implication I was drinking at fifteen.  Half two, then?”

“Half two, Tony,” Barton says, and hangs up.

It’s altogether too easy to have an affair, Tony decides.  It happens the same way every time, even if Tony always says there’s nothing he hates more than routine.  Barton calls in advance to check what time suits Tony best.  He turns up on time – never early, never late – and they wait for Pep to leave if she hasn’t already gone.  Tony shifts closer, Barton leans to kiss him, and everything escalates at an embarrassing pace, no-parents-home-after-high-school style.

They don’t fuck.  There are hand jobs and blow jobs and kisses so hard they hurt; there is friction and there’s frotting, and if Tony’s not mistaken negotiations have just opened for rimming.  That is, of course, depending on whether or not you count the kind of cowardly half-hints they’re both guilty of making as ‘negotiations’.  Either way, they’re enjoying a pleasant variety of different sexual practices.  They just happen not to include what Tony really _wants_.

Eventually, of course, he cracks.  It happens in the middle of the night when Pepper’s away on business.  He gets the impression Barton might have been about to leave, as is his way, but he’s desperate enough that the thought doesn’t stop him.

“Is there any particular reason you haven’t tried screwing me into the couch-wall-bed-floor yet?  Delete as appropriate.”

Barton sits up and reaches over for the shared glass of whisky they abandoned earlier in favour of messy, noisy kissing.  “Well, Anthony,” he says, and takes a drink from it.  “You never asked.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“Take it or leave it.”

Tony tuts and sits up in bed, accepting the glass as Barton offers it to him.  “Grumpy.”  He doesn’t mean it – neither did Barton, and there’s no sense in making a problem out of something that isn’t a problem at all.  That’s not Tony’s style.  “You could have asked too.”

“Figured there had to be a reason you weren’t going for it.”

“Like what?”

“Like her.”

Tony scoffs quietly.  “Some morals they’d be, if sucking you off was somehow more kosher than letting you stick it in.”

Barton smirks, taking the glass back from him and placing it back down carefully on the table.  He takes his time with everything.  It surprised Tony at first; he figured he’d be a fast-showers-and-microwave-cooking kind of guy, but it turns out Barton has the patience of a saint and the lifestyle to match it.  “You’d be surprised.”

“Nothing surprises me anymore.”

“It surprises me when you shut up.”

He snorts, rolling onto his side to trace his fingers over Barton’s arm.  He has excellent arms.  They’re archer’s arms, Tony supposes.  They’re bound to be strong.  He likes the arrangement of the muscles and the firmness of them; he likes the contrast between it and the softness of Barton’s skin there. It's quite unlike his hard archer's hands.  It's soft like Pepper’s, even.  He probably shouldn’t think like that.  “You and I both know there have been plenty of times I have been silent in your company.”

“Yeah, when your mouth’s full.”

“You say that like you’re complaining.”

“You know I’m not.”

Tony grins smugly, moving his hand over to Barton’s chest.  No arc reactor here.  No breasts, either.  “Good boy, Barton.”

They sit in companionable silence.  The comment about Tony never shutting up is a tease, after all.  They do often spend time together not saying or doing or even watching anything.  There’s always something to talk about with Pepper – statistics, signatures, important dates coming up. Insert your business-related query here.  He appreciates having the time just to sit in company.  Sometimes he even prefers it to the sex.

No, that’s a lie.  He loves the sex – but sometimes he’ll be sitting with Pep or in the lab and catch himself wishing it was quiet time with Barton instead.  That’s all.

This time, however, is different.  It only lasts a few long moments before Barton speaks up again, eyes fixed lazily on Tony’s hand.  Of course it’s still drawing circles on his chest.  “You know I have a first name too.”

“Sure I do.  It’s ‘Agent’.”

Recycling the old joke bubbles up memories of Coulson he’d rather not go over, so he distracts himself and looks sideways at Barton with an easy grin.  He isn’t handed one back, and that’s weird.

“It’s Clive.”

“I know that.”  Though he’d always thought it was Clint, and simply can’t bear the idea of admitting it.  Wasn’t it Clint?

Barton gives him a look, displeased.  “It’s not Clive.”

“Thought not.  I think you’ve had too much of that there whisky,” Tony says pointedly, and sits up to roll his shoulders.  Where did this conversation come from, anyway?  It feels a lot like it means something, and he isn’t fond of that idea.  “It’s Clint.”  The telling-off he’s just had in that look Barton gave him makes him uncertain, though, and he’d rather look tentative about a right answer than certain about a wrong one.  “Right?”

“Right,” he confirms, also sitting up – only he swings his legs out of bed and reaches for his boxers.  “Mind if I finish that bottle before I head out?”

“Take it,” Tony says, running a hand through his hair, “but you don’t have to go right now, just… FYI.  She’s not back ‘til Tuesday.  You could stay.”

“Could,” he agrees, pulling the boxers on and standing up.  He pours the rest of the bottle out, though it only fills half the small glass, and knocks it back fast.  “Got to be up and out early, though.  Makes more sense to be home.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Uh-huh.”

He did seem to be leaving before, Tony supposes.  The fact that he’s leaving now, after this name thing, doesn’t really mean anything.  Besides, Barton’s not the type.  All the same, after watching him dress for a while he can’t stop himself prodding a little further.  “You’re not interested in what we were talking about before?”

“You mean that you want to fuck?”

“I thought I made that obvious.  Was that not obvious?”

Barton gives a slight smile, pulling his shirt over his head.  “Very obvious,” he assures him, “but not tonight.  Like I said, I’ve got an early start.  Maybe tomorrow.”

“Sure.”  This is too close to rejection for Tony’s liking, though, so he gives it one last shot.  “Well.  Goodnight, then, Clint.”

He picks up his bag and gives Tony a pointed, even _unimpressed_ look as he heads out.  “Nice try.  Maybe tomorrow, I said.  Night, Tony.”

Maybe twenty minutes later, Tony supposes that this could almost be regarded as a _tiff_ , all things considered.  If he’d been in the same situation with most people he’d been with, they’d probably be pissed off now.  Barton doesn’t really let things show much.  Even during sex he’s not as vocal as Tony thought he’d be.  He’s practical, though. He’s not very forthcoming with moans and groans, but he’ll speak up when he wants something.

It occurs to Tony that this might have been one of those times.

 

Pepper calls in the morning, and he’s glad to hear the sound of her voice.  They’ve known each other for years and years, and even if she’s unsatisfying sexually at least he knows she’ll never give him drama about what he calls her before, during or after said unsatisfying sex.  By the time he’s off the phone with her, he’s been more flirtatious than he’s been with her for months, and what the hell is he doing with Barton in the first place?

When he gets the inevitable phone call later, the conversation they had last night has evolved into a full-scale argument in Tony’s estimations.  Men don’t talk about things, he tells himself, and so that must have been their equivalent of a screaming match.  Better let it cool off first.

“Hey,” Barton says.  Tony thinks he sounds a little sheepish, but he probably doesn’t sound any different to usual in reality.  “I’m passing your Indian place on my way back today.  You want me to bring some up?”

“Uh – actually, I think I’m going to work on my armour this afternoon.”

“Sure.  Later?”

“Today is… not good, really,” he says, polishing a bit of the counter with his thumb to give himself something else to focus on.  “Something came up.”

To his credit, Barton doesn’t leave the pause too long.  “I thought we had plans for today.”

“That was before I had a thing.”  He’s not sure why he’s lying about it.  After all, he could just tell the truth, but somehow this feels cleaner.  There’s less chance they’ll talk about it this way.  “So… I’ll call you when I don’t.”

“It doesn’t really matter what you call me, you know.”

“Can’t hazard a guess why you’d bring it up, in that case.  Not sure why you’ve brought it up now.”

Barton sighs heavily like he’s speaking to a child, and it irritates Tony.  They’re not in a relationship.  There’s no reason for him to listen to that.

“So I’ll call you.”

“Fine,” Barton says.  Tony hates how mature it sounds - wants to pull right back from it.  It takes a lot for him not to hang up.  He settles for something just a little less childish.

“Talk to you then, Barton.”

Barton hangs up.  He usually hangs up before all that ‘see you later, take care’ business, but today it feels more significant.

 

He’s fallen out of love with Pepper.

It hits him like Cap’s shield to the chest at breakfast on Wednesday morning – the first after she comes home.  She’s reaching up to the cupboard to get something, and she’s wearing one of Tony’s shirts.  A while back he’d have been flooded with a variety of responses to this sight.  He knows this because it’s not the first time he’s seen it.  There’s lust, of course, because hell, she’s a gorgeous woman and she’s wearing his shirt and it only _just_ reaches down over her ass, and what a spectacular ass it is too.  There’s the protective part of him, which does exist, that’d make him want to go get it for her and cuddle up to her because she couldn’t quite reach it, and that’s adorable even if it’s condescending to think so.  There’s the intellectual, who’d be listening to and interested in what she’s saying about today’s political news and appreciates her multitasking, and of course just the lover, delighted to have her in this vulnerable, just-us moment that doesn’t exist for anybody else but him.

Today there is none of this.  She’s just a girl in a shirt – a pretty, smart girl that he likes and thinks deserves the world, but there’s a distinct lack of swelling love for her he can’t ignore.

Of course, one thought leads to another, and Tony’s a clever guy.  It takes him all of ten minutes to stumble across his overwhelming, powerful desire to kiss Clint Barton, rough and fast and long until their lips are red and sore and they’re already too close for public consumption - hard, hot and ready with Clint under him or beside him or on top of him or _anything_ where their bodies are pressed tightly, tightly together.

He doesn’t want to tell her the truth, but it’s too out of the blue for anything else.  She’ll know there’s something up, and he doesn’t want to leave her guessing.  He owes it to her not to lie to her anyway. Besides, as much as he hates it, he kind of understands that cliché of ‘I love her, but I’m not _in_ love with her’ now.

“Pep,” he says.  Best to be as direct as possible.  “I’ve got to come clean.”

 

She cries.  He wasn’t expecting that, but then he supposes he didn’t think about it for long enough to expect anything.  Maybe that was stupid of him, but at least it’s out now; at least he didn’t have time to decide to do her a disservice.

They agree that she’ll move out, and she promises she’ll consider staying around to look after Stark Industries with him even if she doesn’t want to right now.  When she leaves he realises there’s every chance he won’t see her again for a few years now, and he feels guilty as sin that he doesn’t care more about that.

He already wants to pursue Barton, though.  Clint.  He didn’t bring it up, but she wants him to do it, she said. She said she would rather he move straight on than hang around waiting for her feelings to harden up.  The only problem is that he’s not entirely sure having a fantasy about kissing a guy so thoroughly it’d make a porn-star blush is conducive to starting a healthy relationship.

All the same, he calls him.  He doesn’t have a choice.

“Hey, Tony.”

“Hey,” he says. He only allows himself a few moments’ pause before he has to come out with it.  “So, I, uh… I ended it with Pepper.”

“Huh.  Why?” He’s not uninterested, despite the minimal response.  Tony can hear the sounds of the city behind him – at least, he assumes it’s the city.  Some public place or other.  Wherever he is, he’s definitely paying attention, and speaks back into the silence Tony leaves only a few moments later.  He clearly knows Tony’s struggling.  “For… me?”

“No.  Yes.  No.  I don’t know.  Kind of.”

“Delete as appropriate,” Clint says.  That’s one of Tony’s; he’s using it to mock him in some kind of affectionate way, and isn’t that what couples do?  “So which is it?”

“Kind of,” Tony confirms.  “It just kind of occurred to me, you know… that we weren’t… that it wasn’t right anymore.  Me and her.  So I told her about us, and now it’s over.” He pauses. “Sorry.  I guess I shouldn’t have dragged you into it.”

“No.  Better you told her the truth.” He pauses for a moment, maybe focusing on something at his end of the phone call.  Tony wishes that thing would cease to be.  “How’d she take it?  Is she okay?”

“She’s upset,” he admits. “But honestly I think she was most surprised to be wrong about you and Natasha.”

“She wasn’t,” Clint says.

For a moment, it sends him reeling.

“You there?”

“Sure.” He can hear he’s mumbling, and he doesn’t like it.  “You just, uh… you know Pep thought you two were sleeping together, so…?”

“We are,” he confirms.

Tony considers, just for a moment, whether there’s a difference between being angry and being stung.  At the moment, he isn’t sure there is at all.  “So you… what, you lied to me about it?”

“No,” Clint says.  He sounds offended by the accusation.  “I never lied to you.”

“I asked if you were dating.”

“And we’re not.”

“You don’t think you could have dropped in that you _were_ screwing?”

“Not sure when that got to be your business,” he says.  Tony can hear the restraint tugging in his voice.  He’s in a public place, after all.  “It’s not like you didn’t…”

“Yeah,” Tony says, tone heating up, “but you knew about me and Pepper.  You knew about that.”

“So did everyone.”

“I wasn’t sleeping with ‘everyone’.”

Clint sighs, and there’s a long pause, but Tony leaves it open.  He wants to hear what he has to say for himself.  “Look.  Sorry if you think I hid it from you.  I didn’t.  I just don’t believe in full disclosure with…”  He grumbles.  “Give me a minute.”

“Be my guest,” Tony says, deliberately over-chipper.

If it annoys Clint, he doesn’t say anything.  He just stays quiet until the sounds of the city are much quieter, too.  Aha – heading for privacy.  “I just don’t believe in full disclosure with someone I’m just fucking around with.  Makes things messy.”

“How’d you figure that one?”

Clint scoffs.  “Look.  You’re obviously the jealous type.  That’s what this is about anyway.  Even if you weren’t, you’d just want to know who’s better, who I called first today, who I’d rather spend the evening with…” He trails off.  “Like I said.  Sorry if you don’t like that.  That’s just the way I do it.  Shall we move on to why you left Pepper now?”

“I really don’t think there’s much point in that.”

“So you did leave her for me.”

“I left her because I don’t love her,” he says, annoyed that the conversation is moving this fast.  He can’t think; he can’t edit himself before he speaks.  He resists the urge to ask Clint to text instead.  Besides, he’s convinced he’s in the right here.  He can’t come off too badly either way, though what he’s decided to say next is already embarrassing him with its frankness.  “I don’t know what I want from you.”

“Well, here are your options,” Clint says, clearly trying to keep his tone even.  He’s so fucking mature.  “We can carry on screwing like before.  Can fuck like you asked, if you want.  Either that, or we can finish it.”

A relationship, Tony notices, is not listed as an option.  Neither of them comments on this.

“What do you want?”

“It makes no odds to me, Tony,” he says.  Approximately two seconds later, he speaks back up again.  “Shit, I don’t mean… look, I’m not saying I don’t care either way.”

“I think, actually, if you were to make a transcript of this conversation and read back… I think you’ll find that’s what you _did_ say, in fact.”

“Sure, but it came out wrong.  I’m just trying to give you the decision, okay?”  He pauses, forcing himself to add, “I like seeing you.”

Tony’s pride cannot and will not allow it.  “I think we should probably call it a day.”

Clint sighs, and takes a moment.  “Alright, Tony.  It’s your call.”

“Sure.  You have fun with Mother Russia.  Anna Karenina.  Catherine the Great.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“Sorry.  Casual racism. Habit of a lifetime.”  That isn’t what Clint meant, and they both know that.  They don’t mention it.  Tony has a feeling Clint’s going easy on him because he can tell Tony’s hurting, and he hates that.  The knowledge he’s hurting at all is frustrating by itself.  “So.  I’m going to go now before it gets any more awkward.”

“Take care of yourself.  Okay?”

“Doesn’t work when you sound like someone’s holding a gun to your head to make you say it,” Tony says.  “ _Do svidaniya_.”

He hangs up before Clint can say anything, and a few seconds later he’s already caved and headed for the alcohol cupboard.  It’s half past eight in the morning.  He aims to be completely plastered by nine, and why the fuck not?  Why the fuck not?


	3. A Man

The week after they stop calling each other feels weird.  It’s difficult to come to terms with something if you refuse to let yourself try, after all, and Tony isn’t giving himself a single minute.  There’s the Mark VIII armour to work on, he tells himself, and prioritising whining over Clint ‘She Wasn’t Wrong’ Barton over that would be sheer insanity – not to mention bafflingly sentimental.  After all, they were never anything definable in the first place, and to kick up a fuss about it all would be more childish than even Tony Stark can allow himself to be.

Even so, he mopes.  He can feel himself moping in the seconds when he sips his coffee and the moments he spends waiting for the metal to cool as he works on the armour, and there’s nothing much he can do about it.

When he gets the request from Fury that he work with Clint again for another mission, then, it’s almost a relief.  Once they’ve had it out in person it has to get better.  Even if they hate each other, at least it’ll close the case file he has open in his head.  He accepts the mission, though it feels strange not to consult Pep about it first, and hopes that he won’t regret it later.

Regret, after all, is a bitch.  Regret plays a huge part in why they’re being sent out to X Middle Eastern country. Fury didn’t include the location on the paper work for safety reasons, but Tony's pretty sure he has it worked out anyway.  S.H.I.E.L.D. has an underground, unmanned surveillance facility built conveniently close to one of the superhuman creation labs they’re watching, but forgot to include an effective alternative power source for said surveillance facility.  Now they need Tony to go in and give it an arc reactor jump-start, and apparently he needs Clint Barton to cover him for it.  He won’t be in his suit, after all.  They’re being forced to hike in from a long distance away, and it makes no sense to carry it for the work they’re doing.

He feels naked going into this kind of environment without it, of course, but he’ll have Clint.  Even if they fight, he’ll still have Clint.  He tries not to think about the amount of trust he must have for the guy in order to feel comforted by this.

Part of him considers asking Fury to send a second guard to pretend he doesn’t trust him, but the last thing he wants is to make Fury think about why he’d do that.  The guy already knows too much about Tony’s personal life and this is one thing he’d rather keep guarded.

All the same, when he turns up to catch the jet, it’s kind of obvious that things are awkward between them.

“Stark.”

“Barton.”

It’s the first and last thing they say to one another as they’re strapping in, but Fury doesn’t comment if he notices.  Natasha is there to say goodbye to Clint – which she does in Russian, though he responds in English.  She gives Tony an acknowledging nod too, and he wonders if she knows about what happened.  Probably, but to her credit she doesn’t act any differently towards him.  This is more than he and Clint could say.

“I paired you together because it seemed to work well last time,” Fury tells them, stony as ever.  “That does not mean I approve of how you deviated from the plan.  It just means that I trust it will not happen again.”  He says this specifically to Clint, perhaps considering Tony a lost cause.  Tony is somewhat proud of this.  “Just go easy.  It’ll be a simple job if you’re careful.”

“Exactly how careful would you call burying a big-ass surveillance centre in an extremist group’s back yard?”

Clint smirks, though he looks the other way to hide it.

Tony listens to music for almost the entire flight.  It’s easier, and he may as well save the default ‘how are you, isn’t this annoying’ conversations for when there isn’t a S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot listening.  It’s not that he doesn’t trust the guy, but… no.  Come to think of it, he's fairly sure he slept with the man’s girlfriend once.  Probably best not to trust him after all.

It occurs to Tony that he’s not a very nice person, actually.

They land early in the morning so they can walk a good distance before the sun is at full intensity. By then they’ll want to be halfway there and already resting in the tent.  Well.  Maybe ‘want’ is a strong word.

The plane takes off again, eerily quiet, and only then do they turn to each other and properly look.

“Doing OK?”

If this is supposed to refer to their tryst, Tony refuses to acknowledge it.  “I’m standing in the desert without my suit, with a view to getting really close to a group of people who’d really like to pick my brain apart.  Maybe literally.  I’m going to let you guess.”

Clint clearly disapproves, but lets him get away with it.  “It won’t be that bad.”  He adjusts his quiver on his shoulder.  Why he needs it on right now Tony isn’t exactly sure, but he’s not in the mood to argue about it.  “Besides, they’re not going to get anywhere near you.”

“Protective, huh?”

“That’s… pretty much my job, yeah.”

Shit.

“Walked right into that one.”

Clint grins slightly, heading off in the right direction after consulting his compass. Who uses a compass, anyway?  Why can’t they have GPS?  Boy Scout asshole.  “Keep walking, then.”

“Literally, or is this your way of trying to get me to talk?”

“Got a long way to go today.”

“Answer the question, Hawkass.”

Clint smirks, though Tony is sure he knows most of the annoyance is put on.  Sure enough, it drops a few moments later.  “How’s Pepper?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Not talking?”

“Oh, she’s talking,” Tony says.  “I just don’t know if she’s telling me the truth.”  He never could tell if she was lying to him or not.  He kind of liked that, actually.  Most of the time he was too smart to be lied to, but Pepper Potts knew him well enough to know where to hide, so to speak.

“How about you?”

“What about me?”

“Gonna tell me the truth if I ask how you’re doing?”

Tony considers it for a moment.  “Well.  The armour update is going well.  I’ve started looking for a new assistant – not going to be easy, so… I guess you could say I’m bracing myself for that.  Maybe a male assistant this time.  Young, lithe…”

“I really didn’t think you’d care, you know.  I wasn’t trying to make a fool out of you.”

“Just a natural talent, huh?”

“Would you be reasonable, just for a minute?  You had a girlfriend.”

He can feel it boiling up in him again – not anger or hurt, but a potent blend of the two that consumes him and prevents any logic from diluting his speech.  It’s all escalating very quickly, and there’s nothing he can do about it.  “Uh, yeah.  I had a girlfriend.   _You_ had a secret.”

Clint doesn’t respond.  It doesn’t take more than a glance to work out that he’s irritated.  Tony decides not to press it, but a moment later it flares up in him again and he can’t – physically, personally _can’t_ – stay quiet.

“Least you had the decency not to screw us both on the same day.  I’m guessing that’s why you weren’t interested in that; even you’re not greedy enough to start something with a person you don’t even want.”

“Tony, I swear to God.”

“Swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster if you want.  I’m still right.”

“To think I used to wonder why Natasha couldn’t stand you.”

“You liked me well enough when I wasn’t calling you out on lying to me.  That’s the difference, right there.”

Clint speeds up a little, evidently preferring the faster pace to the conversation, and Tony doesn’t attempt to stop him.  They carry on that way for a while, and it’s maybe half an hour before Clint tries again.

“You ought to know you’ve got it all wrong.”

“Alright,” says Tony.  If Clint can sound calmer after thirty minutes of being confined to his own thoughts, then so can he.  It can’t be that hard to be mature in an argument like this.  “Then why don’t you tell me how it really is, and I won’t even correct your hideous lies until you’re done?”  He pauses.  Too aggressive? Alright, so maybe it isn’t as easy as he thought.  “If there are any.”

Clint stays ahead and doesn’t look back, but Tony’s sure he rolls his eyes.  The truth is that he absorbed a lot of clues about who Clint is as a person while he was sucking his dick and giving him filthy looks over expensive bottles of beer.  They know each other well.  Maybe that’s why he’s willing to give the guy these few minutes, even if he’s already pretty sure he’s not going to be interested in what he has to say.

He spends a long time thinking before he speaks.  Tony’s almost about to prompt him when he finally opens his mouth to start.

“Me and Nat are friends.”

It takes a lot of restraint for Tony not to correct him – ‘Nat and _I_ ’.

“We screw each other because it just makes sense.  We trust each other.  We know each other.”  Clint pauses again.  Tony recognises the silence.  He’s trying to decide exactly how much it would be prudent to tell Tony; he's trying to decide exactly how much Tony needs to know these details to understand.  Apparently he concludes that it’s worth it.  “She doesn’t need a safe-word when she’s with me.  I just know.”

He cuts in before he can help himself.  “I knew it.” This time Clint does turn around to throw him a look, and it’s probably a sign of his investment in the conversation – either that or heatstroke – that prompts him to add, “Sorry.”

Apologies from Tony Stark are rare enough that Clint is satisfied.  He turns back around to carry on.  “No attachment in the morning.  No hard feelings when someone else comes onto the scene.”  He pauses for a moment, and Tony notices the visible strain in his neck as he forces himself to speak.  “Like you.”

“I hardly came onto the _scene_ ,” Tony says.

Clint beats him to the joke, blank-faced and a little bit brilliant.  “My chest is a scene.”

“What about my face?”

“Can’t tell if you’re mad or flirting.”

“Always with the big questions.”

“The point is – it wasn’t… in the way of anything.”

“Oh. Are we back on subject now?”

Clint stops walking to turn around and face him.  Simple gesture that it is, this is unexpected.  He is, after all, a highly-trained and quite meticulous agent.  First and foremost he is here to do his job, and part of the reason he’s so highly valued by S.H.I.E.L.D. is that he doesn’t allow anything to distract him – except Tony has.  He’s about to speak when the unmistakeable sound of a helicopter drifts into earshot.

It could be anybody, of course. It could be S.H.I.E.L.D. surveillance for all they know, though Tony somehow doubts it.  The uncertainty is enough reason to get out of sight.  Unfortunately, there’s not much to hide behind out here, and it takes them all of five seconds to start running towards the nearest rock formation.  They’re lucky there’s even that.  Otherwise their only option would have been pulling the camouflaged tent canvas over their bodies and hoping for the best.

As things stand, Tony runs - though there’s no grip in the sand.  Staggering forward, all he can do is try not to fall, and the weight of the backpack he’s wearing throwing itself backwards and forwards as he moves doesn’t help.  If he had to run much further he’d almost certainly have lost balance, but thankfully they reach the rock without incident and force themselves into a crevice.

“Guess we should have expected some overhead,” Clint points out, a little breathless.  Thankfully, they reached cover in enough time that it doesn’t matter.  “You good?”

“Fine,” Tony says, listening for the helicopter still.  They listen to it go over, and watch it carry on away from them.  Thermal sensors would pick them up in an instant, but chances are they won’t have any sensors active.  After all, they’re not expecting Clint and Tony to be there; they’re not looking for anyone.  “I’m fine.  Crammed against a dusty old rock, but I’m good.  How ‘bout you?”

“I’m okay.”

They stand and breathe for a while, because they can.  If Clint notices Tony’s eyes on him, watching him recover, then he doesn’t say anything about it.  He doesn’t say anything about their interrupted discussion, either. In fact, there’s no sign it happened at all.  Maybe Clint has said his piece and that’s the end of it for him.  Now he’s all business.

“You ready to move on?”

Of course he would phrase it like that.

“Alright.”

They walk on through the low heat, quieter now.  It probably conserves energy to be silent.  They stop for a minute or two every now and again to drink from one of the flasks, and then they’ll talk about how far they still have to go today, but otherwise it’s as though Tony is completely alone in the desert.

He doesn’t mind this, particularly.  It’s easier to think out here without the distractions of a thousand different lab projects and a thousand different things he could tolerate watching on Netflix.

Suppose he had known about Clint and Natasha.  Would he have cared?

It takes him approximately two and a half minutes to deduce that yes, actually, he would have cared.  This is worrying for two reasons; firstly, because it means it’ll probably get to him when he’s drunk or trying to sleep that there is _no possible way_ he could have come out of that whole Clint scenario without being hurt, and secondly – more pressingly – that he’s jealous when it comes to Clint Barton, and that is a deeply dangerous place to be.

By the time they reach a good place to stop, the sun is already getting to baking heat.  It’s always hot in the desert daytime, of course, but there’s a marked difference between the morning sun and the midday burn, and Tony is feeling it now.

It’s a world away from the cold cave where he first felt Clint’s hand around his cock.  It feels like years ago now, not least because of the temperature change, but mostly because now he sees a man when he looks beside him.  He sees a man with a lot of logic and a sense of humour and a love of taking his life easy and slowly when he’s not on the job.  He sees the guy who he used to feel frown against his shoulder as they frotted together, hot and heavy between thin sheets.  He sees the guy who’d staunchly refuse to let Tony out of bed to make coffee after he gave him head – not for any particular reason he’ll state, but they both know that it’s because he considers it his turn to pay the favour back.

Fuck, but he’s in trouble.  He’s in deep, deep trouble.

They pitch the tent together, because it’s faster.  The material is coated to stop the heat, and as soon as it’s stretched decently over the frame they can’t get inside the thing fast enough.  Tony has never been so grateful for the shade before in his life.

“You know what I love?  I love science; science and technology and fucking _beautiful_ heat-absorbing compounds that can be inlaid into tent canvas.”

Clint snorts, letting Tony drink from the flask of water first before he takes it back to finish it off.  There are more of them, so there’s no harm in him doing this.  It strikes Tony that sharing the same bottle-top is the closest they’ve come to kissing recently.

He needs to think about something else.

“You know you’re a dork?”

“I do know that.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a few moments before Clint speaks up again.  He doesn’t say anything Tony was expecting to hear.

“What’re you thinking?”

It’s fairly out of the blue, and Tony isn’t used to being asked this kind of thing.  Pepper never really went in for any of that sentimental stuff, particularly because she knew she wouldn’t get anything satisfying or sweet out of him.  As such, he isn’t really sure how to respond to it.  The only thing he can do is keep to his default position and aim for humour.

“What, are you a woman now?”

Tony isn’t really sexist - at least, he doesn't think so. He just borrows it sometimes when he tries to be funny, even if he knows it isn’t fair to call on the stereotype and can see how it could be damaging to make light of this stuff.  Clint, on the other hand, is staunchly feminist.  Tony knows this because Clint has told him so.  He supposes you’d have to be, being so close to Natasha. What it means, though, is that this really wasn’t the best way to reply to Clint at all, and he knows that the second it comes out of his mouth.

He won’t correct it, though.  He doesn’t have it in him to correct himself like that, and in that sense he feels like one of the most cowardly men he’s ever encountered.

“I said ‘dork’.  I meant ‘jerk’.”

“Alright,” Tony says.  “I know.”  A few moments later, he gives in.  Talk like that really fucks Clint off the wrong way, and he knows accepting the title of ‘jerk’ is not nearly enough to pacify him.  He doesn’t think about why he’s so keen on pacifying the guy in the first place.  “I don’t know what I’m thinking about.  The heat.  The mission.  The other mission.”

“What about it?”

“Just the difference,” Tony says vaguely.  Why do they have to talk about this stuff?  If they’re going to reunite the easiest way to do it is how they started in the first place – a blunt sexual proposition and an acceptance of that.  Alright, so it’d be skating over what caused the problem in the first place, but that’s how Tony’s always done things when it comes to the beaty-beaty thing beside the arc reactor – the death of his parents and his relationship with them when they were still alive, for starters.  Why should he change tactics now?  “Why?  What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking we have a lot of empty time to rest before it’s cool enough to walk again.”

“Are you serious right now?”

Clint shrugs.  “If you like.”  Crucially, he doesn’t actually look at Tony, and it’s this that acts as Tony’s tipping point.

“Yeah, I like.”

Now Clint looks up.  “Just sex, though, or sex-plus?”

“Will you just get over here?”

Clint doesn’t need more invitation than this, apparently, and for saying he usually likes to take his time with things, he’s pretty fast making his way over to Tony’s side of the tent.  Tony feels somehow warmer without his shirt once Clint drags it off over his head for him – but of course he’s not complaining, particularly when Clint’s shirt comes off too and he crawls down lizard-like over Tony to demand a kiss.  Of course Tony pulls him down eagerly with an arm around his neck, keen to have him as close as possible as he complies.  He winds a hand into Clint’s hair, though it’s short enough that it’s difficult, and he’s not paying attention to any of it because Clint’s lips are _impossible_.

They don’t break apart much, but he starts pulling back for longer, smoochier kisses so he can speak between them.  “Miss me, huh?”

“Asshole.” Clint gives him one final lip-kiss before peppering – no, planting; less awkward word – little ones down his jaw and his neck instead.  It’s very pleasant, but it’s not enough to distract Tony from the joke he wants to make.

“I’m sorry,” he says innocently, tilting his head back to give Clint room.  “I wasn’t aware you knew I had one.”

Clint snickers, stopping to flick his tongue experimentally over Tony’s nipple. It elicits an embarrassingly easy hiss from him, which he decides very quickly will never be spoken of again.  Thankfully, Clint doesn’t mention it.  “I don’t know what you want me to do about that out here.”

“Go exploring.  You’re dressed for that,” Tony suggests, flicking his eyes over him before adding, “more’s the pity.”

“Yeah,” says Clint, sucking his nipple briefly between his lips – fuck, that’s good – and throwing him a look as he lets go again.  Tony supposes it’s meant to be innocent, but there is no way for Clint Barton to arrange his face that would convince Tony of _that_.  “But I don’t make a habit of carrying lubricant with me on my missions.”

“Saliva-”

“Is in short supply with the amount of water we _don’t_ have, and wouldn’t be enough for you anyway.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know _you_ ,” Clint points out.  It’s truer than Tony likes to admit - not that he’s really in a position to admit anything in particular as Clint makes his way down his body with more kisses, trailing unfairly close to the waistband of his pants.  “And I know you’d _fuss_ and _whine_ and _bitch_ …”  Tony swears as he tugs down that waistband to start sucking gently at the skin beneath it, which prompts him to stop and snicker again.  “Sure. Just like that.”

“It is far too hot for you to be fucking around right now,” Tony says, and though he’s playing around – mostly – it _is_ pretty oppressive in here.  The tent is doing a good job of keeping the sun and some of the heat off them, but really it’s a losing battle.  They haven’t had enough fluids, and won’t until they get to the surveillance centre, where they _hope_ the last S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives left behind the amount of water they estimated in the tank.  They’ve got water to live on, of course, but that doesn’t make it comfortable.

Clint grins up at him, unperturbed.  “And that.”  But rather than continue the argument, he dips his head to start sucking at Tony’s skin again, so Tony doesn’t bite back or complain.  It’s been a long time since he had a hickey.  He’s not _that_ juvenile, after all.  From Clint, though, it feels absolutely acceptable – largely because it feels _sexy_.  Usually Tony hesitates to use the word on real people, equating it more with wannabe teenagers and pornography, but there is no other way to describe it.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, and it doesn’t even come close to doing it justice.

Clint takes his time leaving a mark, sucking gently instead of going hard and getting it done fast.  There’s a joke in there somewhere, but Tony is too distracted to make it.  When Clint finally pulls back, he admires his work first – a dark, possessive plum that earns another light nip and a kiss before he looks up at Tony.

And what a look it is.  Tony groans and tips his head back just to get away from the silent, howling need in Clint’s handsome, worn face.

“Alright?” Clint says.  It’s playful but rough.  Tony tugs at his trouser fastenings with desperation and tugs them down awkwardly as soon as they’re undone; a moment later and his legs snake over the other man’s shoulders.  If they’re going to play possessive, then he demands his own share.

“Stop talking and put your face to better use,” he says.  And Clint does.

 

It’s the first time they’ve woken up tangled together.  Tony accepts this realisation with a light kiss to Clint’s bicep, slightly sweaty as it is, and lies back down with a quiet yawn.  The oppressive heat has faded off along with the afternoon, and though it’s still fairly warm it’s also pleasant weather to be draped over Clint Barton’s taut archer’s body.

They’ve shared the same bed before, of course, after tiring each other out and needing ten minutes of snooze time, but this is a different thing entirely.

“That’s your ass,” a half-asleep Clint remarks vaguely, referring to what his hand is resting on.

“Yep.”

“Okay.”  He doesn’t move that hand, but lifts his other to check the watch on his wrist before putting it back on Tony’s shoulder.  “Ten minutes and we can get going.”

“Can,” Tony says pointedly, “or have to?”

“Have to,” Clint clarifies.  “But for now, just… still.”

“You gross romantic,” he says, but stays put anyway.  Clint has some heat to his skin still, and his hands are warm and welcome on the parts of Tony they’re resting on.  He knows he’s in great danger of coming out with something embarrassing if he opens his mouth again, so he doesn’t. He just sits quietly for once.

“You’re quiet,” Clint says, because of course he’d say something about that.

“It’s not illegal.”

Clint snorts, closing his eyes again.  “Just makes me think there’s something to worry about when you’re not constantly talking.”

“You don’t worry about me,” Tony says, trying to sound casual.  It’s his last line of defence.

“Sure I do.”

“When would you ever worry about me?”

“When you call and say you’ve left your girlfriend, but you’re too scared to tell me why.  That makes me worry.”  He pauses for a moment, considering.  “Or when you _don’t_ call ever again because I screwed my friend while we were having an open affair.  That makes me worry.”

Tony thinks, not for the first time, that maybe he’s been a little bit stupid.

They don’t say anything else until it’s time to leave, and even then it’s just practical things.  Clint is annoyingly good at reading people, so Tony supposes he must have just picked up on the fact that he needs to think right now.  Observant asshole.

“Alright,” says Clint, eyes covered over with those ridiculous sunglasses of his – and by ridiculous, Tony of course meant ‘strangely attractive’.  “You ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Get your eyes covered, then.”

Tony throws him a look, knocking his own pair of sunglasses down over his eyes.  “Thanks, mom.”

“Shut up.”

It doesn’t take them long to pack up the tent, but by the time they’re finished Tony already remembers why he was so happy to get inside it earlier today.  The heat may be softer than it was at midday, but it’s still blazing down, and if Tony doesn’t at least get a good tan out of this then he’s going to consider sending Fury a ‘screw you’ card.

At least he has good company.  He’s faintly sure he heard Clint call the sun a cocksucker, but heat can cause hallucinations, and who wouldn’t want to hear such dirty words come out of his mouth?

By the time they reach and uncover the entrance to the facility, though, it’s getting towards evening, and he’s beginning to understand what people say about extremes in the desert.  There’s already a light chill settling in, and he’s grateful to head down to the centre of the facility before it gets any worse.  They’ll at least have the heat of the machines running once he does his job, after all.

“You want to start now?”

“Sure.” He clips in to the main electricity circuit first, as he doubts if there’s much power left even to light the place, and they’re screwed if they don’t have light.  “Though I’m going to want to eat in all of five minutes, so…”

“Got it.”

Tony waits for some kind of ‘I’m not your wife’ joke until he remembers this is Clint he’s dealing with, and turns back to the circuit to unclip from it.  Done.  Unfortunately, the actual problem he’s here to solve is not as easy.

He heads over to Clint with a grumpy expression ten minutes later, and it’s enough to prompt the question.

“What?”

“Your stupid engineers had a bet on, I think,” he begins, sitting down on the floor opposite Clint.  “A bet on who could come up with the least logical way of powering this thing up.  And I take my hat off to them, because they definitely succeeded.  Someone owes the other guy twenty bucks.”

“You can’t do it?”

“I _can_ do it,” he corrects.  “It just means that instead of powering up fully from one point on the circuit, I’m going to have to…” He considers how to say this simply.  Clint is intelligent, but this isn’t his area.  “I’m going to have to split it up, and power it up with smaller amounts from a couple of different points on the grid.  For each separate machine.”

“Huh.”

This isn’t the most helpful thing to say, but given that Clint is currently serving up some kind of tasty-looking cold meat thing, Tony isn’t inclined to complain.

“I could have done with having the suit.  Would’ve made it a lot faster.”  Clint hands him his food, and he accepts it gratefully.  “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Tony pulls a face, biting into his food.  He can read ‘what?’ from Clint’s facial expression – which is worrying enough in itself – so he explains.  “You’re way too reasonable.”

Clint finishes the bite he’s eating and then nods, gesturing with his hand.  “Say it again.”

Tony’s confused, but he does it anyway.  “Thanks.”

“Fuck you.”

Clint grins a second after he says it and Tony can’t help but shoot one back.  “Goofball.”

“Yeah.”

A second later it occurs to Tony that it’s true.  Clint is excellent at his job, and he’s never met a smoother, more capable guy – not even Rhodey, who Tony has the highest respect for.  Outside of his job, though, Clint is not an agent.  He is patient and passionate and thoughtful; he is somehow both sarcastic and painfully sincere.  As he just demonstrated a couple of moments ago, he is not at all afraid to act like a dork if it pleases him.

Tony wants every part of him, and all to himself.

The need hits him smack in the chest, but he acts on it slowly, leaning in a little before Clint moves to meet him.  They kiss softly at first, and it’s serious enough that it makes Tony pull back with the intention of saying something stupid – only it’s also serious enough to keep him quiet, so he just kisses him again, long and intense and desperate.

Clint reaches for him to pull him closer, and the food is forgotten as Tony complies.  If he wasn’t so full of ego he’d move into the agent’s lap of his own accord, but he has those ideas about men and women that Clint doesn’t have, and it takes more pulling until he’s finally encouraged to sit there.

“Want you,” Clint says as Tony settles in his lap, and the sheer rawness of it nearly finishes him off already.

“Yeah.”

He can feel Clint’s already hard under him, and it’s driving him crazy.  He rocks down against him, groaning against his lips as he takes them again.  It is about possession, too. He feels that very strongly every time they kiss.

“Easy, easy,” he hears between kisses.  If this is Clint’s ‘easy, easy’ then he can’t wait for the next setting up.

It’s a little cold in here, but Tony doesn’t protest as his shirt is pulled off.  Clint spends a moment sweeping his fingers over the arc reactor, as fascinated by it as he was the first time he saw Tony properly naked.  It occurs to Tony now that he didn’t pay attention to that moment at the time.  Neither of them did, because it was about the sex and not the process.  Now almost all of their firsts have already been spent.

It doesn’t matter, of course.  They’re not teenagers, and no first is a real first anymore.

He tugs Clint’s shirt over his head, keen to get it away from him before he gets too engrossed with pressing light kisses to Tony’s chest.  Sure enough, that’s where his lips go back to as soon as he’s clear of the fabric.  It’s such a torment, though, that he’s already forgotten about this afternoon’s slice of satisfaction.  He feels like he hasn’t had Clint for years.

“Enough already,” he tells him, tugging his hair with his free hand.  “I want it now.”

“Easy, I said.”  Tony can hear the smirk in his voice, and growls; Clint refuses to relent, though, as he presses another kiss just above his nipple.  “You’re not going to let me enjoy you?”

“I can think of several other ways you might enjoy me more.”

“I can’t.” Tony shivers as Clint smooths his hands down to his lower back, dipping his fingers below the waistline of his trousers.  “I like watching you squirm.”

“Because you’re an asshole,” he provides.  It’s affectionate, of course, and Clint knows it.  Tony doesn’t think he could be with anybody too oversensitive – too much of this goes on in his head for him to guarantee it won’t spill out of his mouth sometimes.

“Well, you are what you eat.”

Tony groans quietly, tipping his head back and grinning as the space he’s opened on his neck is filled with gentle nuzzling.  Typical that he can mention what happened in the tent earlier – which was _bone-melting_ – and then do something that can only be described as cute.  “Jesus, Clint.”

“Like it when you call me that.”

He snorts.  “Your name?”

“Not a guarantee with you.”

“Guilt trip.”

Clint snickers; spends a moment nibbling his shoulder.  “You think it’ll work?”

“Start getting me off and I’ll call you whatever you want.”

“Blackmail, huh?”

“Think _that’ll_ work?”

Clint’s laugh rings out warm and heavy in the large, unfriendly chamber.  “Sure, Nightlight.  But one day I’m going to teach you not to be so damn impatient.”

Tony forgets what he wanted to say as Clint slides a hand between them to clutch at his cock through his trousers, clinging tight to his shoulders.  His nails dig in a little, but Clint has never minded that – and good, because he wants him marked up under his clothes.

“What do you want?  Huh?”  Clint squeezes gently, eyes flicking over his face.  He’s a sucker for big reactions.  Tony knows this because he’s exaggerated several times before just to give him the satisfaction.  “I know what you really want, but while we can’t…?”

He shuffles forward into his hand as he considers, and Clint doesn’t pull away.  “Friction.”

This could mean anything, of course, but Clint understands.  He grins, leaning forward to catch his lips in a rough, solid kiss.  “Climb off.”

Tony does as he’s told, and starts undoing his trousers without having to hear that instruction.  He keeps his eyes fixed hard on Clint as he does the same, unashamed by the rapt attention he’s paying to him.  Clint knows he’s attractive – who wouldn’t with a body like his? – so there’s hardly any point in pretending otherwise.  He drinks up the sight as Clint tugs down his boxers - watches him spring out, hot and hard.

“Fuck.”

“Soon,” Clint teases, crawling over to help tug at Tony’s clothes until they’re off and away.

Tony hopes he’ll start right away, but he knows he won’t.  He’s proved right moments later as Clint perches over him not to frot against him, but to kiss down the length of his body.

“Stop that,” he grunts.

“Only when I’m finished.”

He suddenly considers that there might be cameras in here, but supposes they won’t be active until he powers the rest of the equipment up anyway.  Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s had a camera-feed audience.  You know you’re famous and fucked up when you’ve got your own tag on RedTube, after all.

Tony’s disproportionately proud of that tag.

He hears a light guttural moan, and braces himself for the kiss on his thigh.  Tease.  “You’re so fucking hard.”

“Really?” Tony manages.  “I hadn’t noticed.”

Clint snickers, resurfacing to give him another deep kiss before finally – _finally_ – he lowers himself down and presses his body against Tony’s.  He feels himself whine, but Clint kisses it up and stops it from escaping too far; he must have heard it anyway, but Tony no longer cares.  He traces his hands down Clint’s sides until they’re cupping that amazing ass of his, needlessly pulling him closer, and lets Clint take the job of taking them both in hand.

“Fucking amazing,” he hears him murmur.  And after that, Tony’s so lost that he’s not sure he’d even recognise the English language if he heard it.

Though he was achingly slow with the lead-up, Clint is generous once he actually starts.  There are none of the expected long, slow strokes - just fast jerks as they rock their hips together, and it’s heaven.  His back is cold against the concrete floor, but he barely notices with the crushing heat of Clint’s body over his.  Every now and then Clint leans back and stops to flick his tongue over Tony’s nipples, just to stall him for longer, and it’s so good and so cruel that Tony almost – _almost_ – considers begging him to stop.

Then he feels Clint’s breath against his neck pick up, and he senses desperation in his hand movements.  It occurs to him that maybe Clint’s not the only one who’s learned to read a new body over the past few months.  “That’s right,” he murmurs, up close to his ear.  “Come for me.”

Clint groans, leaning to catch his lips; Tony slides his hands back up to his hips to dig his nails in as he feels Clint come.  Once he feels that, he’s lost himself.  He moans like a whore against his lips, eyes squeezed firmly shut and nails surely drawing blood as he bucks and moans against Clint’s lips, his cock and his body.

He hasn’t felt so utterly spent in years.

He pulls Clint back in for another lazy kiss before he lets him up, and watches him pull over a cloth.  He cleans the mess from Tony’s chest first, then his own.  Tony can’t take his eyes off him.

“That was,” Tony says gravely, turning towards him as he lies back down beside him, “at least a seven out of ten.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe even a seven and a half.”

“Well.”

They lean closer to kiss again.  It feels more like sharing than taking, and Tony feels _it_ welling up in the pit of his stomach.  Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.

“Don’t let me say it.”

“Okay,” Clint says, and kisses him again.

That’s all there is to it.

 

They wake up early the next day to start work on the plant.  Predictably, Clint is much better at climbing, so Tony lets him test the routes to work out the easiest way before he has a go.  Maybe he overreacted last night when he saw the job. There _are_ several ports he needs to power up from, but it only takes them three hours to get a basic charge running through the whole thing.  After that, they spend two charging the generator, but it’s still not so bad.  It’s not a permanent solution, but with any luck it’ll keep it all running for another year or so.

“Once more unto the breach,” Clint says as they prepare to head back out into the heat.  Tony’s surprised, but not enough to stop him from showing off.

“ _Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit to his full height.  On, on, you noblest Barton_.”

“Knowledge of Shakespeare too, huh?  I’m impressed.”

“I’m an impressive guy.”

“ _There’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility_.”

“And apparently, so are you.”

“One of the only parts I know.”

“Only part you need,” Tony assures him, adjusting his backpack and sliding his sunglasses down.  He shoots him a sheepish grin, though, as he presses on.  “Cry God for Fury, America and St. Rogers!”

“Dumbass.”

This journey through the desert is much more bearable than the first.  They set off just as the sun goes past its peak, so it can only get cooler as they walk into the night.  It’s dark halfway into the walk, of course, but it’s also companionable as they spend the entire time side by side.

More than once, Tony thinks he could get used to this.

The plane is waiting for them when they arrive, and so is Fury.  The fact that nothing went wrong this time is not lost on him, though he seems incapable of praising them for it. They share a smirk behind his back after take-off, only Tony can’t wipe his off when Fury turns around again, and it provokes the obvious question.

“For God’s sake, Stark.  Did something happen that you’re not telling me about?”

For a brief moment, Tony considers telling him in explicit detail just to see how he’d react.  In the end, though, he doesn’t get to choose, because Clint is doing something _ridiculous_ with his tongue behind Fury’s back and even if he’s not looking directly at him, all he’s capable of doing is snorting.

Fury mutters something about employing toddlers, and it only makes him worse.  It gives him a great amount of pleasure to see Clint trying to give mature, professional responses.

They leave together after the plane lands.  It clearly gives Fury pause, but he doesn’t ask – and thank God for that, because Tony doesn’t have a single answer to give himself.  Nick Fury wouldn’t stand a chance.

 

Tony would like to be able to say they first spend some time talking and apologising and being mature about the whole ‘entering into a relationship’ thing, but all that seems to be going unsaid.  More importantly, their hands seem magnetised to touch each other, and they don’t care to do anything about that but _obey_.

“Going to fuck you,” Clint tells him, and picks him straight up to carry him to bed.

They shed their clothes like snakeskin, as though there are no buttons or arm-holes or anything to get in their way.  It’s impressive, really – or maybe Tony just doesn’t notice the snags as he’s clouded over with desire.  He hasn’t been fucked in years - not properly, no.  He doesn’t think he’s _ever_ been fucked by someone he actually likes – or, yes, anything stronger.  Specific words need not be mentioned.

Efficient as always, Clint is already hard as he goes to Tony’s bedside drawer to find the lubricant.  Tony refuses the condom with a shake of his head, and crawls back on the bed to be ready for him when he comes.

“Please,” Clint starts to speak but cuts himself off, tossing the bottle onto the bed beside him as he leans closer.  He’s still standing and deliciously restrained despite his desire.  Tony can’t tear his eyes away.  “Please let me take my time.  I don’t want to rush.”

“Okay,” he says.  It’s easy for Clint to change his mind when he’s standing there so wanton.  It’s even easier to stand by the decision as he moans quietly and lifts Tony’s leg, kissing the back of his knee with unbearable, desperate passion.

“Fuck, Tony.”

“Yes, please.”

Clint isn’t rushed by this but he grins, and the movement is soft and welcome against the skin of his leg.  Tony watches him trail his lips down, kissing and nipping and utterly focused, and it’s hideously rousing – the way he thinks maybe you should only feel about porn or your favourite kink, only this is neither.

“You are a fucking masterpiece,” Clint tells him.  “You know that?”

“I know that,” Tony assures him with a light grin.

“Good,” he says, preferring the serious route.  “Because you’re beautiful.”

“I’m not-”

“A woman?” Clint finishes for him.  He stops now, standing up a bit to look Tony in the eyes – though pleasantly enough, he keeps his hand on his thigh instead.  He’s sure, but not too stern; this won’t turn into an argument, but obviously it means something to him.  “No.  You’re not.  And you’re not being watched, and you’re not being judged, and you’re not going to have to start talking high-pitched or act like a princess because you let me call you that.  You’re a man, and you’re masculine, and you’re beautiful, and there’s no fucking deal about that.  Okay?”

It probably shouldn’t, but it sends shivers of lust up his spine.

“I’ve got it.”

“I’m not going to say it,” Clint says.  At first he’s confused about the contradiction, and then he remembers his request in that cold chamber in the desert, and realises that Clint doesn’t mean ‘you’re beautiful’.

Tony floods with red.  He can feel it even if he’s detached from it somehow, and he sits up on his elbows to keep from feeling dizzy.  “Okay,” he says, and sits forward to trace his hand over Clint’s chest, over that one specific spot where he can feel that satisfying, regular throb of life.  “Alright.”

They look at each other, close and careful.  It’s almost surreal.

“C’mere, stupid,” Clint says, and they lean together to kiss.

He gives up on kissing Tony’s leg, and instead takes to smoothing his hand over it.  His touch trails painfully close to Tony’s cock every time, but never quite makes it. Falling short is a deliberate choice, of course, because clearly he wants this to last.  He’d call him a tease, but he doesn’t think it’s intended to be a tease.  Besides, he can understand wanting to touch and not let go.

He lifts his own hands to Clint’s shoulders, drawing his fingertips over the lines of his muscles. They’re perfect, and he’d lean to kiss them if he wasn’t so intent on keeping his lips fastened or close to Clint’s at all times.

Finally, Clint crawls over him.  Their cocks nudge together briefly, and it sends a jolt of need through him that he doesn’t need to bleat out about for Clint to notice.

“I got you,” he says.  He’s already breathless.

Tony watches him reach for the bottle of lubricant, and watches him tip some into the palm of his hand to rub it carefully over his fingers.  Tony first, then – always, always Tony first.  He shuffles back and lifts his legs, letting Clint hook them loosely over his shoulders, and lays back to relax as those fingers trace eagerly down the cleft of his ass until they reach his entrance.

“Won’t say it,” Clint repeats, and leans to give him another rough kiss before he finally, carefully fits his first finger inside of him.

Immediately, there’s a growing want for _more_ , and he groans quietly as he feels it.  Clint leans to nuzzle the inside of his knee, content to take that sound as a come-on-yes-more.  He slips in another finger, already curling them slightly; Tony strongly suspects this is to try and get more noise out of him, so he obliges with a full release of his inhibitions.  If Clint wants to hear him, then he wants to give him something to listen to.

“Fuck,” Clint murmurs.  “Fuck, Tony…”

He grins, throwing his head back and arching up more against his hand.  If he was given the opportunity he’d gladly fuck himself on Clint’s hand, but Clint pins him down with his spare.  It’s a clear _no_ , and Tony is in this position because he wants to be controlled, so he obeys.

“Come on, Clint,” he manages, hamming it up with the panting – though admittedly, he doesn’t have to try as hard as he’d like to pretend.

He feels Clint scissor his fingers inside him, and fights off a shiver.  It hits him suddenly that what he’s feeling – right here, now, at last – is Clint Barton inside of him, and his head feels like it’s going to spin off his shoulders.  He knows it’ll hurt if they don’t prepare more, but he has lost the ability to care.

“Fuck, Clint. Just stop.  I… fuck.  I need you now.  Right now.  No more.”

They look at each other, and it takes all of a second for Clint to acquiesce.  “Right now.”

He reaches for the bottle again and slicks himself up.  It’s a fast and efficient job, though Tony allows himself to enjoy the sight of Clint touching himself – fuck, but he missed that while they weren’t together – before he finally lines himself up against Tony’s entrance and pushes slowly in.

Tony tightens his legs over Clint’s shoulders, moaning loudly and unable to prevent himself from clenching tight around him.  It hurts like he knew it would. It really does, and he needs the moment Clint gives him to get used to it as he whines out the pain.  He forces himself to relax, though, and opens his eyes back up to look at Clint.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  Tony’s comes out as more of a moan than anything else, but it’s permission all the same; Clint grins at him, already flushed and giddy with lust, and starts to move in him.

It’s slow like he begged for, but Tony is fast learning that ‘slow’ does not at all equate to ‘soft’ or ‘boring’, and he doesn’t mind learning this one bit.  He feels every shift Clint makes, and has time to really _know_ every roll of his hips and hard slam into him - every movement of his hand against his chest.  It’s burning him up, but the pain is fast fading now that Clint has found that knot of nerves in him and is hitting it every time.

He is _gagging_ to be touched, but Clint won’t have it.  He’s a tyrant of a lover, pinning down everything save Tony’s voice, but he senses that it’s only because Clint knows Tony’s desires swing that way.  Whatever the reason, he is relentless, and it’s hot as hell.

It feels like an age before those hard, slow thrusts speed up, but once it starts it escalates very quickly.  He can see the sweat gathering in sheets on Clint, and he reaches up to cup his face to kiss him all the same.  It doesn’t matter to him that they have to pause to do that, and it surprises him.  Clint surprises him a lot, all things considered.

By the time Clint finally reaches down to take Tony’s dick in his hand, he’s almost ready to come without any contact at all.  He’s panting and keening, but feeling Clint touch him and knowing that means he’s ready and this is it gives him renewed energy.

Clint calls his name as he finishes, hot and shuddering.  Tony can’t hold on once he feels him come.  He follows noisily, tangled up with Clint and face buried into the crook of his neck.

They don’t say much.  They just climb into bed under the covers, limbs wound together, and look at each other.  If you’d described it to him a month ago he’d have laughed in your face.  Now, he says, “You’re amazing,” and it’s the sincerest thing he’s said in years and years.

 

At first they prefer to keep it to themselves.  Many people aren’t even aware that Tony and Pepper have broken it off yet, and it’d seem a little sudden.  Besides, it’s nobody’s business but theirs, and they’re not the type to talk about it anyway.

Natasha knows, of course.  Tony fast discovers that she’s even more terrifying when you’re in a position to be able to hurt her best friend, though she seems to realise that this isn’t his intention.  She’s even kind of funny sometimes when you forget what she could do to you – though naturally, this is rare.

Pepper knows too, but Tony prefers not to think about that.  It’s not a life without guilt, after all.  Fantastic as it is, this is still a relationship that started with a cheat, and he’ll never be able to walk away from that.

It helps that it’s Clint and not some asshole. Sexy, patient, goofy, smart-ass sweetheart Clint, who has that elusive talent that Tony has never been able to get hold of.  He knows when not to tease.  He also listens just as well as he fucks, and as crude a combination as it sounds, Tony frequently thinks this is his favourite thing about the guy.

They never say it.  They don’t have to.  Maybe someday they will, but they’re not the flowers-and-chocolates kind of people.

They learn this on Valentine’s Day a few months after they get together.  They both forget about it until the morning of the fourteenth, and they both pretend to have remembered – then they both turn up later in the day with a totally unnecessary amount of shit by way of attempting to compensate for what they feel was clearly a brazen lie.  They laugh about it and end up kissing each other, and quickly decide that _every_ Valentine’s Day ought to be spent mostly in bed.

Or on the table.  Or on the wall.  Delete as appropriate.

Almost everything he thinks about Clint is sickly-sweet to the point of ridiculousness - pure and utter overkill.  Thankfully, though, he doesn’t care nearly as much as he always thought he would.  Maybe that means he’s grown up, but the way he laughs every time beautiful, brilliant Clint Barton tongues the air behind Fury’s head – and he _does_ do it, without fail – might perhaps suggest otherwise.


End file.
